The Bibighar Massacre: The Darkest Days of the Indian Rebellion of 1857

https://mimimatthews.com/2015/12/06/the-bibighar-massacre-the-darkest-days-of-the-indian-rebellion-of-1857/

by Avawelles • 9 years ago

40 48 9 years ago

Is there any list on the lives that were taken by the colonial swords and guns?

"British Indian history". That pretty much sums it up. No country should ever have the ignominy of appearing second in its own history. Every Indian wishes the 1857 revolt had snowballed to freedom.

tacomonstrous6• 9 years ago

To be fair, there really was no 'India' before the British cobbled one together. Unlike China, there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent. It's hard to know how things would have ended up politically if not for British hegemony. Would there be a country like India, or would its various disparate parts have continued as distinct sovereign entities? Part of the miracle of the whole Indian project is that it has remained basically intact since independence. This isn't something one would have taken for granted a few decades ago.

viyyer• 9 years ago

I am not sure how you separate these two instances. What is considered as China now has been together in history in one or two instances whereas India as a whole has had 5-10 instances where there have being reigns having the whole of India together . Update your knowledge of history before commenting .

jalayir2• 9 years ago

there never was one power that controlled the whole subcontinent

There were several - indeed, the British had it easier because the Mughals had dissipated within living memory, and all their bureaucracies and systems were still functioning.

shardinator3• 9 years ago

India was like Greece, China like Rome. China had central control while India had independent states that didn't control each other politically but were unified in terms culture, communication, roads, infrastructure and importantly commerce.

Today it wouldn't make sense to say "there really was no 'Greece'". Same for India.

morekozhambu5• 9 years ago

To be even fairer, Could you please enlighten us on for what country or region where the British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French were searching for, further to the African tip the 'cape of good Hope' perhaps?

dkural• 9 years ago

As the comments in the article point out, it's very convenient that a female prostitute gets blamed for it without firm evidence.

webbrahmin• 9 years ago

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre British troops opened fire on unarmed protestors and pilgrims. 400 to 1000 men women and children were murdered by British soldiers who were under the command of Colonel Dyer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jallianwala_Bagh_massacre

peteretep2• 9 years ago

What relevance does an event 60 years later in an entirely different place have?

mirimir3• 9 years ago

It demonstrates consistency of British attitude toward Indians.

sandGorgon• 9 years ago

In India, we never refer to this as the "sepoy mutiny" or any crap like that.

It is always called the First War of Indian Independence. It would take us another hundred years and Gandhi and the nonviolent freedom struggle to be finally rid of the British.

But the greatest irony comes from this : that was undivided India (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh). We went from that to the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world today.

playhard• 9 years ago

Wrongly called as First War of Indian Independence. There was Vellore Mutiny in 1806.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vellore_mutiny

kumarski2• 9 years ago

yep, I love your comment.

finolex1• 9 years ago

For those interested in this topic, I can't recommend "The Last Mughal" by William Dalrymple enough.

It chronicles the crumbling Mughal Empire in Delhi, the slow shift in the Indian-British relationship from one of equals to a colonizer-colonized relationship, how perilously close the British came to losing India in 1857, and lots of painstakingly well-researched interesting anecdotes about life in that era.

Here's what he writes about the last of the Mughals: “As the political sky darkened, the court was lost in a last idyll of pleasure gardens, courtesans and mushairas, or poetic symposia, Sufi devotions and visits to pirs, as literary and religious ambition replaced the political variety.”

And about the East India Company in the 1850s: “So removed had the British now become from their Indian subjects, and so dismissive were they of Indian opinion, that they had lost all ability to read the omens around them or to analyse their own position with any degree of accuracy. Arrogance and imperial self-confidence had diminished the desire to seek accurate information or gain any real knowledge of the state of the country.”

throwaway373922• 9 years ago

The last sentence is as true today as it was then. India memory and its strength however have faded to the point where even its vestiges appear intangible.

31416• 9 years ago

What a strange coincident. Was discussing about EIC this morning. It is sad that critical exploration of its operation is not encouraged. For most Indians, it is the company that came to trade and end up ruling them.

Yet how did it operate, monopolized trade, grow and maintain it's sepoy armies ? It took them more than a hundred years to establish control and another century passed till we had 1857 and almost another to gain independence. It's been 70 years since that, where are we on the continuum. Can we recognize another EIC (internal/external) or are we condemned to repeat it.

If one understands this and can draw parallels with the way modern corporates function, people hopefully will be able to see past their doublethink.

India gained independence from the British, but the structures that held the populace in thrall weren't torn down. They still exist. The government and the corporates are it's inheritors.

dwd• 9 years ago

Yes, they came perilously close to losing India - so much so that the crown stepped in and took it off of the EIC.

While it was unfortunate for India, it's a shame that 160 years later we still have corporations and they are no better now than they were then.

mirimir3• 9 years ago

It's hard to work up much sympathy for invaders.

throwaway373922• 9 years ago

Oh no, not invaders. Nah mate. They brought civilization, education, technology and everything of value in India. /s

(For the record this is what is taught in most Anglophone nations; also true shamefully within India itself.)

mirimir3• 9 years ago

Not at UNIS :)

peteretep2• 9 years ago

A fictionalized but highly readable account: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashman_in_the_Great_Game

kranner• 9 years ago

I love Flashman but the prose is not something I would call everyone's cup of tea. Great writing, but not "readable" as in "easy to read".

kumarski2• 9 years ago

Am I suddenly supposed to feel sad for the British?

How's about we get more stories about the Bengal famine of 1943? 3M indians died b/c Churchill took their rice.

Or the 5k-10k indians that die each day b/c westerners don't let us have access to viable uranium powered energy?

Where are those stories?

LostWanderer• 9 years ago

Or the 5k-10k indians that die each day b/c westerners don't let us have access to viable uranium powered energy? ---------

Slightly off topic but there seems to be a historical love for past events and catastrophes,But the present is hidden from the limelight

http://www.dianuke.org/whats-killing-the-children-in-jadugod...

This nuclear issue is like a trickling bomb for the past 40 years.

abhinai• 9 years ago

I am actually surprised this article made it to the front page on hacker news. It presents a very narrow view of a much larger war. It almost looks like it came straight from the British propaganda machine.

sriku• 9 years ago

The tone of the discourse here irks me. A small story about my late grandmother that continues to inspire me -

My grandmother had gone through the pain of seeing my grandfather all bruised up from non-violent protests against the British. When my father studied ethnomusicology in the US, he used to have many of his musician friends, some of whom were his students, over at home during his visits. Initially, to my grandmother, they were "white people" and she'd give them the cold treatment. Over time, she warmed up to them and even made good friends of many of them, despite hardly knowing any English. She would make yummies for them to express her affection.

That someone who's seen her husband come back home bruised can rise to forgiveness and move to love and friendship is something that will stay with me forever.

That is the only force that can heal the world. Not retaliation. Not counter hatred. Not "proper historical perspective". Not any analysis of which violence is worse, or who started it.

The Bibighar Massacre: The Darkest Days of the Indian Rebellion of 1857

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